Then I took a quick look at the two major ‘types’ of resistance training that are often recommended during dieting: metabolic type weight training (higher rep/short rest interval) and heavy weight training (lower repetition/longer rest interval).  While both have their pros and cons in terms of how they can impact on the overall goal of dieting, my basic conclusion was that if you had to pick one type of training to perform on a diet, it should be heavy training.  I won’t repeat the reasons here, go read Part 1.

I finished that article by asking why it had to be one type of training or another.  As I noted, clearly there is no reason why weight training while dieting must be solely one type of training or the other. More accurately, there’s no reason that metabolic type work can’t be added in some fashion to properly performed heavy weight training.  This can give the pros of each while eliminating the cons of each at the same time.

The question then becomes how to go about combining them which is what I’m going to look at today.

What Not to Do

First I want to talk about how folks should absolutely not try to combine the two types of training.  As I mentioned in Part 1, a common idea during fat loss dieting is that training volume and/or frequency should go UP (compared to where it was when more food was being eaten).

This is, simply, idiotic.  Recovery will always be impaired when calories are restricted and trying to add more and more training to an already heavy load may explain why so many people end up so severely overtrained at the end of extended diets: the combination of too much training and too few calories is a bad, bad thing.

So what’s the implication of this: something has to be cut back.  And in this case, again assuming that someone wants to add some type of metabolic weight training to their heavy weight training, what has to be cut back is the volume and possibly frequency of heavy training.

By doing this, there will be more ‘room’ in the weekly training schedule for the performance of the metabolic type work without destrying the dieter.  Which makes a nice transition into a discussion of maintenance training.

Maintaining Training Adaptations

Both research and practical experience over the years has pointed out one very important thing with regards to training: the amount of training that it takes to maintain a given adaptation is much much less than it took to develop it in the first place.  That is to say, while it may take a significant amount of work to develop something (strength, size, aerobic capacity), you can generally maintain that level of adaptation with much less work.

This is actually a tenet of some types of periodization schemes: acknowledging that it becomes progressively more difficult to develop everything at once as folks get more advanced, many approaches to periodiziation of training will alternate periods where something is being focused (being trained at full volume) with periods of it simply being maintained (while something else is developed).

I’ve actually written about this on the site in the article series Periodization for Bodybuilders and I’ll be repeating some of those ideas here.  When I use specialization routines with folks (something I’ll write about eventually), I will move non-specialized bodyparts to maintenance using the recommendations that I outlined in that article series and will repeat below.

The basic conclusion, again from both research and practical experience is that both volume and frequency of training can usually be cut by up to 2/3rds (that is, to 1/3rd of what you did to improve it) but with one massively important caveat: the intensity of that training must be maintained.

Put another way, you could maintain volume and frequency at the same level but if you cut intensity, you will lose the adaptation.  Basically any combination that’s ever been looked at only works if intensity is maintained.

That last one is the key and goes to a lot of what I mentioned in Weight Training for Fat Loss Part 1, if you reduce the intensity of your weight training (and here I’m using intensity to indicate weight on the bar), you will lose the adaptations that you worked so hard to develop (strength or size).

Let me put this into more practical terms.  Let’s say you’ve just finished a hypertrophy phase where you were training to gain muscle.  On average let’s say that you were performing 6 heavy sets of 6-8 repetitions per muscle group twice per week (say an upper/lower split as discussed in my article on Training Frequency for Mass Gains).

Based on the 2/3rds rule, you could conceivably cut back to 2 heavy sets of 6-8 reps (maintaining the same weights you finished the cycle with to the best of your ability) once per week and maintain your strength and size.   That is, both volume (6 sets becomes 2 sets) and frequency (2 workouts becomes 1 workout) can be reduce by 2/3rds but ONLY if intensity (weight on the bar) is maintained.

Yes, 2 heavy sets.

I should mention that there is clearly a limit to this.  If someone is only doing 2 work sets for an exercise, clearly they can’t cut back to zero sets.  I’m hoping that nobody reading this would make that kind of silly assumption in the first place.

I’d note in this context that many athletes use a similar approach when they move from more general preparation to their competition periods.  As the volume of specific event work goes up, something has to give and that something is usually general weight training.

Athletes found years ago (and research backed it up later), that strength training volume and/or frequency could be cut back significantly while maintaining strength for extended periods but only if the intensity of training was maintained.  The same thing applies here, just looking at muscle size as much as strength.

Now, I still tend to keep training frequency a bit higher even while dieting but, at the very least, this is one place where I wouldn’t get quite as worried about only having someone training a bodypart one time per week.

But as you might imagine, this ends up being a pretty major cut back in overall training volume.  A lower body workout with 20-24 work sets that took 1-1.5 hours to complete at full volume is going to be finished in a fraction of that time.  Six to eight total work sets might be hammered out in 30-40 minutes depending on how many warmups you do and how much you dawdle between sets.  Leaving time and energy to do other things.

As one final comment, this is actually my approach to lifting during a diet even if metabolic work isn’t being added to the training.  On a diet, usually folks find that while their top end may not suffer much, their endurance and work capacity often goes down.  They can get through a couple of heavy sets but then everything drops off in a big way. I’d rather them just get the couple of quality heavy sets done and move on.

Trying to maintain the same heavy volume they were doing prior to the diet is usually a mistake so heavy training volume goes down.    Again, most of the fat loss will come from the diet and/or cardio anyhow, heavy weight training should be performed to maintain muscle mass and the same maintenance rules apply regardless of what else is being done.

But the point of this article was the assumption that a trainee wants to combine metabolic type weight training with their heavy weight training so let’s look at that.

Metabolic Weight Training Parameters

As I noted in Weight Training for Fat Loss Part 1, metabolic weight training is generally described by the performance of higher repetitions with shorter rest periods.  Frequently large muscle group exercises are often advocated for an increased calorie burn or what have you.  Various types of barbell complexes, often using a mixture of strength and Olympic lifting movements are often advocated as are kettlebell movements.

I’d note that it’s usually better to avoid high skill exercises since form often breaks down badly with fatigue and even with light weights this can cause injury.  Only folks with extremely well developed technique can do high skill movements in this fashion without killing themselves.

I often actually advocate machine training (yes, I know, blasphemy) for this reason, I think it tends to be safer while accomplishing essentially the same goals; it also makes moving quickly through the gym to keep rest intervals short a bit easier.  You can still pick compound movements (e.g. leg press, chest press, row) with the dreaded machines.

Rather than focus on the specific modality or exercise, I just want to take a quick look at some loading parameters.  Again, they tend to vary depending on the underlying philosophy of the coach in question but generally speaking anywhere from 2-4 sets of 15-20 repetitions of anywhere from 5-7 exercises done with short rest intervals (60 seconds or less) would be fairly common for this type of training. As you might imagine, this doesn’t make for terribly long workouts (20-40 minutes or so) but they can be exceedingly fatiguing.  Which is part of the point.

Frequency for metabolic weight training can vary from perhaps 2-4 workouts per week.  Of course, this will always depend on the volume of training being done and what else is being done workout wise.  You’ll see this reflected in the sequencing examples below.

Sequencing

So now we have the parameters to set up a week of training for fat loss for both heavy (low volume/high intensity) and metabolic (higher volume/lower intensity) work.  How do we combine them in a weekly schedule?

Fundamentally, of course, there are two basic approaches that can be taken: you can do the workouts on the same day or on different days.  Yeah, duh.

Some of that choice will have to be decided on individually although I’d note that in my experience most people try to train too damn much on a diet in the first place.  When in doubt, please err on the side of a little less training than too much.  In the long-run, it will pay off.

Some of it will also depend on how you divide up the heavy weight training.   Some like to move to simply 3 short heavy workouts per week.  Or even two, training full body at each.  With only a couple of work sets per bodypart, this is eminently doable and might take an hour start to finish.  You probably wouldn’t want to put metabolic work after that, they could go on two other days of training.

Another option would be a more traditional split routine, if someone wanted to stick with a 4 day/week upper/lower workout, they would probably be best off combining the two types of workouts together.  So go to the gym, warm up, perform your heavy work (30-40 minutes or possibly less) and then follow it up with metabolic work (done at the lower end of the volume recommendations to keep the workout length manageable).

Someone with less recovery ability might do better with the 3 day/week upper/lower I described in the Training Frequency for Mass Gains article again combining the heavy and metabolic work but only being in the weight room three times per week.

Of course, as I noted above, dieting is one place where I don’t have as much of an issue with a once/week bodypart training frequency and this can also be done by combining the heavy and metabolic work together since each individual heavy workout is likely to be pretty short since only a couple of bodyparts are being worked.

I’ve tried to show some of these options below.  H is heavy weight training, Met is metabolic weight training.  For no particular reason, I’m going to assume no weekend training sessions although folks who can train weekends can separate things out a bit more.

Options 1 and 2 are folks who can recover from 4 days/week in the weight room, which they do depends on how much they like or dislike full body workouts.  Option 3 is for folks who can’t and need more total days of recovery. Option 4 would be just one of a zillion different ways to use a traditional bodybuilding split routine.

One problem that does arise with this type of thing is that metabolic weight training tends to be full body in nature and this doesn’t always synch well with split routines.  If metabolic work on Monday for legs leaves you too exhausted to go heavy on Wednesday on the heavy leg day, this won’t be a good option.

Finally, since no Internet article is complete without an appropriate product plug, Option 5 is the weekly schedule for my Ultimate Diet 2.0. In that book, rather than referring to it as metabolic work, I called the high rep/short rest period work depletion work since the primary goal was glycogen depletion to set up the cycle.  That diet also used two different types of heavy training noted as Tension (heavy sets of 6-8) and Power (sets of 3-6).  I’d note that it also incorporates a massive carb-load on Friday and eating at maintenance or slightly above on Saturday and Sunday.  But it’s a very specific diet (for advanced dieters looking to get extremely lean while maintaining or even gaining muscle mass) and that schedule wouldn’t be an appropriate training schedule outside of the specifics of the diet set up.

I’d note that the above chart doesn’t even begin to exhaust the possibilities.  I’m sure some reading this are wondering about doing heavy work three days/week and metabolic work on the alternate three days per week.  Well…can it be done?  Maybe.  Should it be done?  For most I would tend to say not.

What about two heavy days and three metabolic days per week with two days off?  That would be at least more workable.  Three heavy days and two metabolic days on the in-between days?  Again more workable.  Just watch out for feelings of malaise, fatigue, inflammation, and the rest that tends to signal that you’re overtraining.

And of course the above doesn’t deal with other aspects of training.  What about cardio? What about intervals?  What about skills work for athletes who do more than just lift weights to get jacked?  Well, that would have to be the topic for another article.

I’d only note that there is simply a limit to how much high intensity work can be performed under any circumstances, and that amount tends to go down when folks are dieting.  I find that too many people, in their quest for EXTREME results have a tendency to try and throw together every different type of high-intensity training without paying attention to the overall loading or the interaction of the different components.  And they pay the price.

Simply, if you want to bring in one high intensity modality, something else has to be dropped out to compensate.  But that’s another topic for another day to cover in any kind of detail.

Summing Up

So that’s that, a look at weight training for fat loss.  As I noted in Weight Training for Fat Loss Part 1, there are both pros and cons to the different types of weight training while dieting for fat loss.   Assuming that maintenance of muscle mass is the goal, some form of heavy weight training must be kept in the program.  In fact, if only one kind of weight training were to be performed, that’s what I’d pick (with the possible exception of complete beginners).

However, the volume and frequency can (and generally, should) be brought down when maintenance is the goal.  Recovery always goes down on a diet (unless you’re taking drugs) and that means that training must be reduced to avoid killing the dieter.

So long as intensity (in this case, weight on the bar) is maintained, volume and frequency can be reduced by up to 2/3rds each without significant loss of strength or muscle mass.  Basically, from the standpoint of strength and muscle maintenance, it’s far better to get 2 high quality sets than 6 half-assed ones.

If desired, that will allow other types of training, in this specific case metabolic work, to be added to the training program.  Sequencing will depend on the individual, how well or poorly they recover and the specifics of the diet but hopefully I’ve given enough information for folks to set things up for themselves.

Today, in Part 1, I’m going to look at some basic concepts and look at the impact of two different ‘types’ of weight training on fat loss while dieting.  As usual, I’ll look at the pros and cons of each and you’ll even get an almost practical recommendation by the end of it.

In Part 2, which I’ll put up on Friday, I’ll address practical issues of how to put together a weight training program during dieting in terms of volumes, frequencies, scheduling, etc.

The Fundamental Goal of Dieting

First it may be helpful to look at what the actual goal of dieting is. As I’ve discussed in every book I’ve written, and in the article What Does Body Composition Mean?, while many are still fixated only on changes in scale weight, the goal of dieting should primarily be focused on fat loss.  Implicit in that, and this is especially true for folks who toil in the weight room, is that there should be a maintenance of muscle mass.

So that’s the basic goal of a diet: losing fat while maintaining (or at least minimizing the loss of) muscle mass.  Simple enough in premise but often more difficult to achieve in practice.

I’d note that there is actually one potential exception to the above: in the cases of extreme obesity, many researchers feel that allowing up to 25% of the total weight loss to be lean body mass is not only beneficial but may be necessary to achieve anything approximating a ‘normal’ body weight (whatever ‘normal’ means in this context).

The reason is that, while becoming obese, a portion of the weight gained is lean body mass.  A good bit of this is connective tissue and other ’support’ tissue for the increased weight but some of it is actual muscle mass as well.  Some researchers differentiate between inessential lean body mass (connective tissue, etc.) and essential lean body mass (organs, muscle) for this reason.

But outside of that exception, let’s start from the assumption that the primary goal of dieting is to lose fat while maintaining muscle mass (or at least minimizing the loss of muscle that often occurs).

Classic Fat Loss Training

An idea that has been prevalent for quite some time (going on at least four decades and probably more) is that the fundamental nature of weight training should change when the goal moves from mass or strength gains to fat loss.  The idea of using high-repetitions with short-rest intervals to ‘get cut’ has been part of the bodybuilding subculture for years and shows up in the training ideas of the general public as well.

Personal trainers talk about training for definition or tone (versus size or mass) and I assume anybody reading this is familiar with many of the popular metabolic type weight training workouts (e.g. Turbulence Training, Afterburn, etc.) that are often suggested when fat loss is the goal.

This is often accompanied by wholesale changes in exercise selection: ‘mass building’ exercises such as squats and bench press are often replaced with ‘cutting exercises’ such as leg extensions (burn in the cuts, bro) and cable crossovers.

An additional idea that most likely came out of the drug use of late 70’s and early 80’s bodybuilding practices is that training frequency and volume should go UP while dieting.  Before addressing anything else I want to address that.  The basic idea of increasing either training frequency or volume in the weight room while dieting is completely ass-backwards on a tremendous number of levels.  If there is a single time when overall recovery is going to be reduced (unless you are using steroids), it’s when calories have been reduced.  Trying to train more frequently in the weight room on a diet makes no sense.

I’ll come back to this more in Part 2 on Friday.

Metabolic Weight Training vs. Tension Oriented Weight Training

For the purposes of this article, I’m going to divide training rather simply into two different categories: metabolic weight training and tension oriented weight training.  First some definitions.

By metabolic type weight training, I’m referring again to the higher rep/short rest types of training that are often suggested for fat loss on a diet. Loading might be something like 4 sets of 12-15 repetitions (or more) with 30-60 seconds rest or less between sets.  I’ve described this type of training before, for example, The Ultimate Diet 2.0 uses exactly that type of training at the start of the cycle to deplete muscle glycogen and maximize fat burning.

Tension type weight training refers to more traditional heavy weight training.  Lower repetitions with longer rest intervals: this might be sets of 5-8 repetitions with 1.5-3 minutes rest between sets or what have you.  Just your stock standard traditional type of heavy weight work.

Now, as you’ll see, each of these two types of weight training has certain pros and cons in terms of their effects while dieting. Let’s look at each.

Metabolic type weight training tends to generate a higher calorie burn than traditional low rep training, the glycogen depletion that occurs increases whole body fat oxidation, and the hormonal response is actually quite similar to interval training (in The Stubborn Fat Solution, this type of training can be used to kick off the more intense Stubborn Fat Protocols 1.0 and 2.0).

Of course, many find that their top end strength falls somewhat while dieting; as well, when people get very lean, joints often get a little bit wonky under heavy loads.  The lighter loads used in metabolic type work can be beneficial in that regards as well.

So those are the pros for this type of training: increased calorie burn, a nice hormonal response, easier on the joints, depleting muscle glycogen enhances fat oxidation.

Here’s the bad.

As I’ve mentioned repeatedly on the site, the primary stimulus for muscle growth is progressive high tension overload (e.g. adding more weight to the bar over time).  Without getting into a big old technical discussion of protein synthesis and breakdown here (you can read The Protein Book if you’re interested); I’ll simply say here that the high tension stimulus that builds muscle is the exact same high tension stimulus that will maintain muscle mass when you’re dieting.

So perhaps you can guess what happens to muscle mass when you reduce weight on the bar to use higher reps and shorter rest intervals. When you remove the high tension stimulus, you remove the signal to build (or in the case of dieting, maintain) muscle mass.  What do you think happens next?  Right, muscles get smaller.

Many natural bodybuilders have found this out the exceedingly hard way by trying to copy the pre-contest training of drug-using bodybuilders.  Without the drugs (to maintain muscle mass and protein synthesis even in the face of the diet), natural bodybuilders watched their muscle mass shrink when they started training lighter with higher reps.  Without the high tension stimulus of heavy training, the body simply has no reason to maintain muscle mass.

And that’s the bad of metabolic type weight training: while it has certain benefits that I listed above, it is an insufficient stimulus, for maintaining muscle mass (with one exception).  At least if used by itself.

That exception is beginners.  Complete beginners, who haven’t built any real muscle mass in the first place don’t have to worry much about muscle loss while dieting (just about any training will maintain it).

But for trained individuals beyond the beginner stage, using metabolic type weight training exclusively on a diet is a recipe for disaster.  Please note the use of the word ‘exclusively’ in that previous sentence. I’ll come back to this in a second.

I imagine you can see where this is leading: outside of any other pro or con of heavy weight training, the biggest pro of all of heavy weight training on a diet is that it best maintains muscle mass.  And since that’s one of the explicit goals of dieting…

Of course, the cons are basically the opposite of what I listed for metabolic type weight training: the calorie burn is generally lower (I’d note that the calorie burn from weight training is rarely massive in the first place), you don’t get much glycogen depletion, you don’t get the hormonal response.

But in this case, at least within the context of the primary goal of a diet (lose fat/maintain muscle), none of that matters.  Put simply, if someone had to choose ONE type of weight training to perform on a diet, it would be heavy tension oriented training while letting the diet/cardio type work handle the fat loss.   I’ll cover loading parameters in Part 2.

In fact, that’s exactly what I recommended in The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook: 2-3 short heavy weight workouts per week (to maintain muscle mass) while allowing the big caloric deficit of the diet generate fat loss.  And it works.

Alternately, you could combine 2-3 short heavy weight workouts with cardio and use a smaller dietary deficit.  And that works too.  What won’t work (for anyone not using drugs) is to remove the heavy tension stimulus completely and move to nothing but higher reps and lighter weights.

Well, not unless you define ‘work’ as losing muscle mass.

But, you say, why does it have to be one type of training or the other? And clearly, it doesn’t.  There’s no fundamental reason why both kinds of training can’t be done while dieting.  More accurately, there’s no reason that metabolic type work can’t be added in some fashion to properly performed heavy weight training.  This can give the pros of each while eliminating the cons of each at the same time.

So how do you do this, how do you combine the two types of training? That’s in Part 2.

Read Weight Training for Fat Loss Part 2

How You Breathe is Less Important than That you Breathe

This subheading may seem a bit silly but it’s actually not.  Back when I worked with a lot of beginners, I often found that they would become completely overwhelmed with all of the information I was giving them (that was on top of being generally overwhelmed by being in the gym in the first place).

We’d be talking about a lot of stuff and on any given weight training exercise they were having to worry about what muscles were being worked, how quickly to lift and lower the weight, overall form, etc.  It’s a lot to take in for someone who is brand new to exercise.

I found that trying to get them to worry about a specific breathing pattern was often too much and many would end up simply holding their breath.  Of course, over a higher rep set (I usually used 8-12 repetitions at that time), they’d end up gasping for air about halfway through.

For that reason, at least in the initial couple of workouts, I found that it was far more important that they breathe than how they breathe.  And that’s what I would cue.  Whether they were able to hit the optimal breathing pattern right off the bat simply didn’t matter (especially given that the weights being used were so light); I just wanted them to breathe and we’d worry about the details later (usually around the third workout).

Basic Breathing During Lifting

Ok, a few definitions are in order.  Fundamentally, skeletal muscle can do three different things: it can shorten, stay the same length, and increase length.

In nerd terms, these are called concentric muscle actions (the muscle shortens under load), isometric muscle actions (the muscle doesn’t change length) and eccentric muscle actions (the muscle lengthens under load).  You think of this as lifting, holding and lowering the weight.

If you’re wondering why I’m dealing with technical jargon (concentric, eccentric) instead of using simpler terms like up and down or forwards and backwards or towards and away, it’s because things aren’t always quite as simple as they look in the weight room.

In some movements, the concentric (muscle is shortening) occurs when the weight or handle is coming towards the lifter; in others it’s reversed. Thinking in terms of forwards and backwards often gets people into trouble.

In a bench press or shoulder press, for example, the concentric action happens as the lifter is pushing the weight away from them (towards the ceiling); in a cable row or pulldown, the concentric happens as the lifter is pulling the weight towards them.

In any case, I’m not going to spend much time worrying about isometric muscle actions in this piece, my focus will be only on the concentric (lifting) and eccentric (lowering) part of the movement.

Now, perhaps the simplest approach to breathing while lifting is to inhale during the eccentric contraction (when the muscle is lengthening) and exhale during the concentric (when the muscle is shortening).  And there is certainly much logic to this piece of advice.

In general, people are a bit stronger when they exhale (this is part of why boxers and martial artists exhale when they throw a punch or kick) and since it’s harder to lift a weight than it is to lower it, it makes sense to synchronize the breathing with the difficulty of the movement.  So you exhale when the weight is being raised and inhale when the weight is being lowered.

As well, and I’ll come back to this in a second, breathing in this fashion tends to cause less issues with blood pressure spiking, at least when compared to holding the breath.  So from at least that one perspective (blood pressure), breathing fairly continuously throughout the set in the manner I’ve just described tends to be safer compared to what I’m going to describe shortly.

For this reason, many are quite adamant that this is how everyone should always breathe when lifting weights.

However…..

Of Partial Valsalva’s, Intra-Abdominal Pressure and Spinal Stability

While the breathing pattern I described above may be the safest from the standpoint of blood pressure during lifting, there are other issues to consider.  One of the most critical is spinal stability.

During lifts that load the spine (e.g. squats, deadlifts, overhead press and many others), it’s critical that the spine be supported to prevent injury (and this is especially true as the weights get heavier and/or the repetitions get lower).

Now, there are a lot of different mechanisms including muscles, ligaments, etc. that act to support the spine during lifting; I’m not going to discuss them in detail here.  But one of the key ones is something called Intra-abdominal pressure or IAP.

IAP is pretty much what it sounds like, an increase in pressure that occurs within the abdomen; for reasons I’m not going to get into here, this helps to mechanically stabilize the spine and prevent it from buckling under heavy loads.

And how do we increase IAP during lifting?  The primary way is by performing a Valsalva or Partial Valsalva maneuver; this simply refers to exhaling against a closed glottis (windpipe).  It’s sort of an active way of holding your breath.

More specifically, to increase IAP while lifting, the following should be done:

1. The lifter should inhale into the belly (note: this is different than breathing superficially into the chest) filling the stomach with air.
2. The lifter should then try to exhale but without letting any air escape because the windpipe is closed off.

Ok, this is turning out to be harder to describe than it is to teach or demonstrate in person.

This may make it easier: think about what happens when you’re sitting on the toilet and straining a bit, odds are you reflexively take a breath and then hold it while pushing down. Boom, that’s a partial Valsalva.

As noted, the major benefit of breathing in this fashion is spinal safety, the spine is mechanically buttressed from the front by the pressure created in the abdominal area.  The drawback is that, at least acutely, this can cause blood pressure to spike.  Obviously, for people with pre-existing issues with blood pressure, the advantages of breathing in this fashion may be more than outweighed by the potential negatives.

It’s also worth mentioning that many lifters wear a belt to help with the development of IAP.  With a belt worn tight enough (and in my experience, many general trainees don’t wear their belts tight enough to do any good), the abs can be physically pushed into the belt; this helps to further develop IAP and stabilize the spine/core while under heavy load.

So how do we put that into practice in the weight room?

High Performance Breathing in the Weight Room

So let’s start from the top, a lifter is squatting with a reasonably heavy weight.  They have taken the bar out of the rack and are standing, preparing to perform their first repetition of the set.  They should begin by taking a breath into the belly (this is also a good time to get the chest and head up, if they aren’t already) and then perform a partial Valsalva as they descend.  In general, the partial Valsalva would be held through the sticking point.

Once through the sticking point, opinions and practice vary somewhat.

I tend to cue exhaling just past the sticking point (making a bit of noise, as necessary since a sharp exhale tends to increase strength) as this often helps the lifter not only get through it but finish strongly to the top of the movement.  The potential disadvantage is that if the lifter exhales too quickly, they may lose some of the spinal stability that the partial Valsalva provided.

Others advocate keeping the breath held until the repetition is completed and breathing at the top.  The advantage of this is that the lifter maintains IAP all the way through the repetition.  The disadvantage is that, if the reps are slow, the lifter may feel like they are running out of air.

Still others advocate letting the air escape more slowly through clenched teeth in a ’sssss’ sounding kind of thing.  This may provide an optimal balance between the two methods, the lifter gets the benefits of exhaling (which tends to make folks stronger) but without losing spinal stability by exhaling too much or too quickly.

Once at the top, regardless of what happened, the lifter should then inhale and perform another partial Valsalva prior to the next repetition. In this context, I tend to cue lifters who are somewhat new to lifting to treat each repetition of the set almost as an individual single.  This is both a breathing and setup thing as many lifters start to rush (especially when it gets heavy).

So for a set of 5 repetitions, I want them to treat it as 5 perfect single repetitions with each repetition starting off with a proper inhale and tightening up prior to beginning the eccentric.  This also gives me a chance to give a quick form cue as needed for each repetition since there is a brief break between each repetition.

As lifters become more advanced, many get comfortable with inhaling and performing the partial Valsalva as they are already beginning their descent and they don’t have to take as long between reps setting up.  But this only comes after quite a bit of practice.  Lifters must have automated the performance of the partial Valsalva first before trying this.

So What’s the Bottom Line?

So what’s the best way to breathe in the weight room? As usual, it depends.

For complete beginners (who should always be using light weights anyhow), it’s more important that they breathe than how they breathe.  This is especially true during the first few workouts when there is so much other stuff that needs to be worried about.

For general lifting for health or fitness type purposes, I’d probably err on the side of the basic ‘exhale while lifting, inhale while lowering’.  Admittedly there will be some loss of stability but usually basic fitness type lifting isn’t aimed at maximal performance and it would be rare for low repetitions or massively heavy weights to be used.  As well, it’s not as common to see squats or deadlifts being used in those types of routines.

As well, individuals with any type of pre-existing cardiac or blood pressure issues would generally want to stick with the basic type of breathing.  Breath holding would need to be avoided.

However, once trainees start pursuing more performance oriented goals and assuming that they don’t have any sort of pre-existing issue, mastering the use of the Partial Valsalva during lifting is crucial.  Not only will it provide the most spinal safety, it will improve performance during the use of low reps and/or heavy weights in core movements like squat, bench press, deadlift, etc.

In recent years, people have gotten fairly fascinated with what is a truly classic program: the 5X5 program.  Since this system happens to be an excellent way of training, this is one of those cases where the fad isn’t a bad thing at all.

In this article I want to look briefly at the history of the 5X5 program as well as at some of the various interpretations that have been used over the years.  One source of confusion comes in that there are so many different ways to interpret 5X5 (depending on the goals and status of the lifter) and just saying that you’re doing ‘5X5′ doesn’t really give all of the details.

So let’s look at the details.

The History of the 5X5 Program

I’m not sure if anybody can say for sure who first did a program consisting of 5 sets of 5 repetitions; it certainly wouldn’t surprise me if lifters in the early 20th century didn’t do something similar since they seem to have tried just about everything at one point or another.

However, almost without exception, the program can be mostly attributed to Bill Starr in his book The Strongest Shall Survive: Strength Training for Football.  Even if others had done it before him, he was assuredly the one who did the most to popularize it.

So me…I’m giving him the credit for it.

Tangentially, The Strongest Shall Survive, even after so many years is truly a great book and I highly recommend that anyone who is a student of lifting get a copy.  It’s only $20 (a paltry price to pay these days) and can be had from the excellent folks at Aasgaard.

Now, here’s an amusing bit of trivia that I bet most aren’t aware of; and that is how Starr actually came up with 5X5 in the first place.  Quoting Starr himself:

The researchers found that 4-6 repetitions of 4-6 sets, increasing the weight on each successive set, produced the most significant increase in strength.  Terrific, I simplified the formula to five sets of five reps as that was the exact median and it was easy to remember.

In recent years, strength coaches such as Glenn Pendlay and Mark Rippetoe have re-popularized the 5X5 program and there are many other write-ups (including the Madcow writeup of 5X5 programs) out there as well.

Basically, the 5X5 program is here to stay and there’s a good reason for that: it’s an excellent program for many applications.  It may not be the be-all, end-all that some seem to think it, but there are definitely a lot worse ways that the average trainee could train than this.

What is 5X5?

In the simplest terms 5X5 refers to a program made up of 5 sets of 5 repetitions.  As I noted above, Starr came up with this by simplifying data showing that 4-6 sets of 4-6 reps was about optimal for strength gains.

Now, sets of 5 are actually a good repetition range for a number of reasons, I’d note that these are discussed in both of Mark Rippetoe’s excellent books Starting Strength and Practical Programming for Strength Training both of which I not only also highly recommend but are also available from Aasgaard.  Again, very highly recommended.

As I discussed in Reps Per Set for Optimal Growth, sets of 5 are actually in the range that I commonly use for hypertrophy anyhow.  Generally speaking a maximum set of 5 will be about 85% of maximum and lifter will use a bit less if they are doing more than one set.  That’s a weight that provides sufficient tension to get maximal muscle fiber recruitment; 5 reps also allows sufficient work to be done with that weight.  High tension plus metabolic work is a winning combination for both strength and size.  Especially combined with load progression over time.

As well, since the metabolic fatigue from a 5 rep set tends to be fairly low (compared to higher repetitions sets), technique is often much more stable compared to higher rep sets.  When fatigue starts to hit on higher rep sets, lifters without stable technique often get sloppy.  Stopping at 5 reps avoids much of that.

I would note that this can also go the other way around, especially as the reps get lower than 5 and the weights get heavier.  Groove becomes much more critical as the reps get lower; whereas lifters can often save a lift that is out of position when the reps are higher, their technique has to be much more consistent to do low reps without getting into problems.

I should note that there are critics of the 5X5 for certain applications, notably competition powerlifting.  The usual criticism is that 5X5 doesn’t provide enough heavy first reps to prepare someone for powerlifting.  A routine based around triples, doubles and singles are often preferred since this not only lets you go heavier but you get more properly done first reps which is a key to optimal powerlifting performance.  And there is much to this idea.

However, I don’t recall the 5X5 being explicitly recommended for powerlifting so I’m not sure it’s a particularly valid criticism.  5X5 is a good way of building basic strength (and some decent size if you do it right) and that’s what it’s typically presented as.

Admittedly, some on the web (as people on the web are wont to do) have tried to make 5X5 the ultimate training program for all applications but that has more to do with people on the web than how 5X5 was ever really presented or meant to be used.

However, even saying that the program is 5X5 still doesn’t get into the details and that’s what I want to talk about next since there are at least 4 different interpretations of the 5X5 program that I’m aware of (and some folks have probably come up with more).

Beginner 5X5/Ascending Ramp

The beginner 5X5 program is actually an ascending pyramid or ramp from a light weight up to a single top set of 5 repetitions.  This was how Starr described his original program although I’m not sure it was exactly keeping with the research he was basing it on (it’s been years since I saw the original paper he based his recommendations on).

So a beginning lifter might do something like 45X5, 65X5, 85X5, 105X5, 125X5.  At every workout, they might try to add 5 lbs to the top set (or to each set) as their strength and technique improves.  For the most part, only the top set is a working set.

I say ‘for the most part’ because when you work out the percentages being used, the top three sets actually end up being in a range that is sufficient to stimulate gains in beginners (roughly 60%+ of maximum).  But at this point I’m getting even more nerdy than I can stand so I’ll stop there.

As well, as lifter progress, often the top three sets end up being fairly stressful and one common modification of the beginner 5X5 approach is to cut the reps on the intermediate sets.  So rather than performing 5 reps each set, a lifter might go 5, 4, 3, 2 and then really give it their all on the top set of 5.

Basically, by limiting fatigue on the earlier sets, the lifter can give the top set more effort.  This approach is commonly only used towards the end of a beginner 5X5 program when the lifter is starting to move some decent weights.  Rank beginners should be performing all 5 reps on each of the 5 sets.

Now, I really like this interpretation of 5X5 for certain applications.  Training beginning lifters is one of them and this ties into an issue of teaching and motor learning (something I’ll write a full article about at some point in the near future).

When beginners are learning a new lift, they need to do a lot of perfect repetitions in order to not only learn but ingrain good technique.  The 5X5 ramp/ascending pyramid is a good way to do with this and have often used it to teach new movements.

So the lifter might start with the bar and perform do 5 perfect reps (ideally the lifter is being given coaching cues throughout).  Then depending on the movement and the trainee, weight (5-20 pounds) are added and 5 more reps are done; again with coaching being given.  If the lifter starts to get sloppy, I’d personally have them stay with the same weight for the remainder of the sets (this is a little bit different than how Rip describes it in Starting Strength).  If technique stays solid, more weight is added until all 5 sets are done.  At the next workout, the lifter would start a little bit higher on the first set and pyramid up again (hopefully to a new top set).  Rinse and repeat.

I’d note that a key to this is that the lifter is getting feedback from a coach basically constantly.  It’s no use to just go through the motions of 5X5 while adding weight on each set and thinking you’re doing it correctly; ideally the lifter is getting technical feedback and using that to make adjustments as they learn the movement.  On this note one very large danger of un-coached lifters using the 5X5 is a tendency to go too heavy too quickly when there isn’t a coach to save them from their own impatience.

In any case, if there is a coach doing things right, each day the lifter should be getting 25 technically good reps (with technique improving over a series of workouts) with progressively heavier weights.  And if you do the math, across three workouts per week, that’s 75 reps, across a 12 week cycle that’s nearly 1000 good repetitions (again, assuming the coach ensures that they are doing them correctly).  That’s the way to learn a movement.

As well, training this way not only helps with technique improvements but starts to teach the lifter how to push and focus more as things get heavier.  Each set with a heavier weight requires them to get a little bit tighter, concentrate a bit more, be a little bit more intent on keeping form solid as things get difficult.  Exerting effort in the weight room is learned skill like any other and this type of program is a good way to start teaching that to newbie lifters.

I’ve also used the 5X5 ascending ramp for reintroducing an exercise after a long layoff.  Things usually move faster (because technique is already established) but starting light and pyramiding up lets lifters get their groove back faster than trying to go too heavy too fast.  Over a handful of workouts, lifters can regain their groove and a lot of their strength by using a 5X5 ascending pyramid and adding weight on each set (and then starting a bit higher the next workout).

Reiterating the above, with this type of approach the early sets are basically always light enough to be done perfectly which is good for reinforcing proper technique.  As well, the gradually increasing loads teaches the lifter to maintain proper form and focus as things get a little bit more difficult.  As well, the top set is still stimulating strength gains so there is usually quick progress (positive feedback being a key aspect of keeping trainees continuing to train when they first start).

Again, the biggest potential drawback is that, left to their own devices, un-coached lifters will invariably add too much weight too quickly and their form will go down the toilet.  Or they’ll get hurt.  In that situation, using a higher repetition range (to limit the weight that can be used) may be a safer approach than the 5X5.

But, as noted, the 5X5 ascending pyramid is primarily for beginners; at some point, a single top set is no longer sufficient to stimulate much in the way of strength or size gains and more volume is needed.  Which is when folks typically move to the other common 5X5 interpretation

5X5 Sets Across

The common next step after the beginner 5X5 ramp is what is usually referred to as 5X5 sets across.  The ’sets across’ means that the same weight is used for each of the 5 sets of 5.  Of course, that would be done after warm-up sets (you can read my article Warming up for the Weight Room Part 1 and Warming up for the weight room part 2 for details on how to optimally warm up) so the lifter will be doing more than 5 total sets of the exercise in practice.

Depending on the work weights, anywhere from 3-5 warm-up sets might be done prior to the 5 heavy work sets.  This can make for a long day which is why this is usually only used for a handful of exercises per workout (with additional work being done for a handful of higher repetition sets). I’ve seen some routines where people wanted to try to do 5X5 sets across for a whole bunch of exercises, by the time you add in warm-up sets, the daily workout volume ends up way too high for most of it to be productive.

In any case, after doing warm-up sets, the goal of 5X5 across is to do all 5 sets of 5 with the same weight.  This pretty much requires that the load be less than the 85% value I threw out above; someone would have to have one hell of a work capacity/recovery ability to do 5 true maximal sets of 5 in a row.  Typically 75-80% of maximum might be used.

Some other general rules of thumbs are often thrown out (usually when the loads are too heavy) for this version of 5X5: for example, if you can’t get at least 14 total repetitions across the 5 sets (a complete workout would be 25 reps), the load is too heavy.  So if you got something like 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 the weight is too heavy.  It probably means you started way too close to your 5 repetition maximum.

Some also suggest that if you hit the gym for your 5X5 and see a big rep drop off (e.g.  sets of 5,5,2 reps), you should call the workout and go home after that third set.  You’re probably too tired to train effectively but you’re probably not so tired that you can’t dig yourself deeper into a hole of insufficient recovery.

Of course, when you get all 5 sets of 5 with the same weight, you should go up a bit of weight at the next workout (how much weight would be added depending on the movement in question).   Depending on how much you go up (and how quickly you gain strength), you might find that you get all 5X5 at the next workout or you might find that you drop a couple of reps at the end of the sets.  In the latter case, you should stay with that weight until you get all 25 reps and then go up a bit.  I think you get the idea.

Essentially the goal of the 5X5 across program is to get a pretty decent whack of volume at the same weight for each set, when you get all 25 reps, add a bit of weight.  Assuming you’re eating well and recovering, this will let you make some pretty decent strength gains.

Other Interpretations of the 5X5

While I think it’s safe to say that the above two interpretations are the most common (other approaches to 5X5 being more about cumulative loading patterns than individual workouts), there are at least two others that I have seen and/or used that I think are useful and worth discussing.  Both are simply truncated versions of the 5X5 sets across.

In one version, only 2 sets of 5 are done at the same weight, often after 3 lighter warm-up sets.  So the program is still technically 5X5 but only 2 heavy sets are done.   When I have done programs like this, personally I was never married to it having to be 5 sets.  I’d do as many warm-up sets (of whatever repetitions I thought were best) as needed and then do 2X5 at the same heavy weight.

Since you’re only doing 2 sets of 5, programs of this sort (John Christy’s basic program is based around this approach) are usually worked much closer to maximum then the standard 5X5 across.  Whereas a true 5X5 might require loads of 75% to get all the sets, 2X5 might let you go 80% or even right at 85% if you have really good recovery.  This can make for some grindy workouts because every work set is a near maximum set.

Very similarly is a program that used to be advocated by folks like John McCallum (author of the excellent The Complete Keys to Progress) which was 2 warm-ups and then 3 work sets of 5 at the same weight.  Like the 2X5 approach, the 3X5 are usually worked much closer to a true maximum set of 5 than the 5X5 across.  McCallum also often advocated following the heavy ‘bulk’ work with some higher rep pump/volume work (in one of his more insane programs, 3X5 heavy was followed by 8 sets of 10 with a 30 second rest). Power bodybuilding or pure insanity…you make the call.

In any case, I find that the above two interpretations can be good when:

1. A lifter is working with extremely heavy weights (very near a true 5 repetition maximum).
2. A lifter has poor work capacity or poor ability to repeat sets with a heavy weight.

Both of these are actually related to the same reason: in both situations, trying to perform 5 sets of 5 with the same weight would mean reducing the weight so much that the optimum range (in terms of the percentage of max) for gaining strength or size is eliminated.   If you can only get all 5 sets of 5 by working at 60-65% of maximum for some reason, I don’t see that as particularly productive.

Yeah, sure, work capacity can be improved but, realistically, some people just suck at doing repeat sets with heavy weights, a couple of heavy sets and they are done for the day.  In that case, cutting the volume to keep the load up (and then making up the volume with higher rep work) may be a better option.  Both the 2X5 and 3X5 interpretations accommodate that.

Some Last Comments

It’s worth noting that certain lifts, such as deadlifts, often also don’t lend themselves well to 5 sets of 5 across, it’s just too exhausting of a load with anything but the lightest weights.  Mark Rippetoe (again, buy Practical Programming) actually only recommends one top set of 5 on deadlifts for this reason.  And I think he has a very good point.

Other lifts such as back and front squats, bench and overhead press, power cleans, etc. can usually be worked for 5X5 across if the lifter gives themselves time to get used to the volume.  I would note that it would be uncommon these days for Olympic lifters to do sets of 5 in the power clean or any other competition (or competition related) movement.  However, for athletes using powercleans for basic strength/power, sets of 5 can be completely appropriate.

I’d also note that I have sometimes used a combination approach of the 5X5 sets across and the lower volume versions I described above; basically moving a trainee from a 5X5 across to the lower volume over the length of a cycle.

Some people, when the weights get heavy, don’t ever seem to be able to get all 5 sets of 5 no matter how long you keep them at the same weight.  So they’ll get 5,5,5,5,3 one workout and 5,5,5,5,3 the next workout and no matter how long you wait, that last set never gets to 5 reps.  They just can’t do it for whatever reason.

In that situation, the solution is to drop the fifth set and have them do warmups + 4 sets of 5 across.  And as long as they get all 4 sets of 5, they go up in weight.  And, usually, at some point they start doing something like 5,5,5,4 and then 5,5,5,4 at the next workout.

At which point you drop the 4th work set and move them to three sets of 5 across.  And then that stalls and you go to 2 sets of 5 after warmups… I think you get the idea.

Eventually the trainee will end up just pyramiding up to one top set as they drop the other sets off.  It ends up being a semi-unplanned volume to intensity taper but it doesn’t follow a set schedule.  You simply drop sets as needed to keep the trainee adding weight to the bar.

By the same token, if you reach a point where they can keep getting multiple sets (say 2 sets of 5) with weight increases, you keep progressing there until they stall.   And, of course, when they finally stall out completely, then it’s time to backcycle the weights and start over again.  Or change rep range.  Or take up golf.  Or….

Summing Up

So that’s a quick look at the classic 5X5 program and 4 of the more common interpretations (again, I’m sure there are others out there).  Used appropriately, it can be a very good program for a lot of applications.  It’s not the be-all, end-all of training, mind you, but then again nothing is.

Bray GA et. al. Hormonal Responses to a Fast-Food Meal Compared with Nutritionally Comparable Meals of Different Composition. Ann Nutr Metab. 2007 May 29;51(2):163-171 [Epub ahead of print]

Background: Fast food is consumed in large quantities each day. Whether there are differences in the acute metabolic response to these meals as compared to ‘healthy’ meals with similar composition is unknown. Design: Three-way crossover. Methods: Six overweight men were given a standard breakfast at 8:00 a.m. on each of 3 occasions, followed by 1 of 3 lunches at noon. The 3 lunches included: (1) a fast-food meal consisting of a burger, French fries and root beer sweetened with high fructose corn syrup; (2) an organic beef meal prepared with organic foods and a root beer containing sucrose, and (3) a turkey meal consisting of a turkey sandwich and granola made with organic foods and an organic orange juice. Glucose, insulin, free fatty acids, ghrelin, leptin, triglycerides, LDL-cholesterol and HDL-cholesterol were measured at 30-min intervals over 6 h. Salivary cortisol was measured after lunch. Results: Total fat, protein and energy content were similar in the 3 meals, but the fatty acid content differed. The fast-food meal had more myristic (C14:0), palmitic (C16:0), stearic (C18:0) and trans fatty acids (C18:1) than the other 2 meals. The pattern of nutrient and hormonal response was similar for a given subject to each of the 3 meals. The only statistically significant acute difference observed was a decrease in the AUC of LDL cholesterol after the organic beef meal relative to that for the other two meals. Other metabolic responses were not different. Conclusion: LDL-cholesterol decreased more with the organic beef meal which had lesser amounts of saturated and trans fatty acids than in the fast-food beef meal.

My Comments

For a couple of decades, there has been an ongoing argument regarding the issue of ‘is a calorie a calorie’ in terms of changes on body composition and other parameters.    I discuss this topic in Is a Calorie a Calorie?

Fundamentally, my belief is that, given identical macro-nutrient intakes (in terms of protein, carbs, and fats) that there is going to be little difference in terms of bodily response to a given meal.  There may be small differences mind you (and of course research supports that) but, overall, they are not large. And certainly not of the magnitude that many make it sound like.

It’s worth nothing that there are a couple of built-in assumptions to my argument, all of which are detailed in the article I linked to above but I want to briefly reiterate them here.

A tediously typical argument of the ‘a calorie isn’t a calorie’ types is usually something along the lines of “Clearly eating 3000 calories of jelly beans isn’t the same as eating 3000 calories of chicken breast and vegetables.”  Well…no shit.

But at that point, the argument is about more than food quality, it’s also about the macro-nutrient content.   And of course the diet containing zero protein will be bad.  But, again that has zip to do with it being clean and everything to do with there being no protein.

My basic assumptions in this argument are that both protein and essential fatty acid requirements are being met.  Beyond that, I find most of the obsession over food quality to be pretty pointless.  Again, this is discussed in more detail in the article linked above so I won’t get into it here.

Now it’s worth noting that a great deal of the difference seen between ‘eating clean’ and ‘eating unclean’ has to do with caloric intakes.  I’ve pointed out repeatedly that, and this is especially true when people are not counting their calories, certain eating patterns tend to make people eat more than others.  It’s easier to overeat donuts than broccoli.

Clearly, someone eating a 2000 calorie fast food meal will obviously get a different response than someone eating a 500 or even 1000 calorie clean meal.  But as with the argument above, at this point there is more than one variable changing; it’s not just about clean vs. unclean, you’re comparing meals of drastically different caloric value.

A far more logical comparison would be to look at ‘unclean’ vs ‘clean’ meals containing the same caloric value and the same macro-nutrient content; by controlling those two variables, the only thing being examined will be the quality of the food (rather than the total quantity or the macro-nutrient profile).

Especially when you’re talking about bodybuilders and athletes who are typically controlling their caloric content.  Under those conditions, I argue that there will be no significant difference between the two; given identical macros and calories, there is simply no real-world difference in a clean vs. unclean meal in terms of its effects on body composition (health and other effects such as hunger control are separate, albeit important, issues).

However, even there the clean freaks will make the counter-argument: they contend that even if the macros and calories are identical, the unclean meal will still be worse.  This is usually based on an assumed difference in hormonal response (usually insulin).

So who’s right?

Unfortunately, very little research has actually examined this topic in any sort of controlled way (there are at least two studies showing that high sucrose diets generate identical weight and fat losses as lower sucrose diets).  At least until this paper came along

The study’s explicit goal was to see if the metabolic response to a fast-food meal would differ to a ‘healthy’ meal of similar macro-nutrient and caloric value.

Towards this end six overweight men and two women were recruited to take part in the study although the data in the women was excluded due to the low number and possible gender effects.

Each subject consumed each of the three test meals on different days with one week in between trials. A standard breakfast was provided at 8am and the test meal was given at exactly 12pm and blood samples were taken every 30 minutes for the first 4 hours and every 60 minutes for the next two hours. Blood glucose, blood lipids, insulin, leptin, ghrelin and free fatty acids were measured.

The test meals consisted of the following:.

• Fast food meal: A Big Mac, french fries and root beer sweetened with high fructose corn syrup purchased at the restaurant itself.
• Organic beef meal: this meal used certified organic rangefed ground beef; cheddar cheese; hamburger bun made with unbleached all purpose naturally white flour, non-iodized salt, non-fat powdered milk, natural yeast, canola oil, and granulated sugar; sauce made from canola mayonnaise and organic ketchup; organic lettuce, onion and dill pickles; French fries made from organic potatoes and fried in pure pressed canola oil; and root beer made with cane sugar.
• Organic turkey meal: this consisted of a turkey sandwich made from sliced, roasted free-range turkey breast with no antibiotics or artificial growth stimulants; cheddar cheese; 60% whole wheat bread made with whole wheat and unbleached all-purpose naturally white flours, non-iodized salt, non-fat powdered milk, yeast, vital wheat gluten, canola oil, and granulated sugar; pure pressed canola oil and canola mayonnaise, stone ground mustard; organic lettuce; accompanied by a granola made with Blue Diamond whole natural almonds, Nature’s path organic multigrain oatbrain flakes, wholesome sweeteners evaporated cane juice, Spectrum Naturals pure pressed canola oil, clover honey, Sonoma organically grown raisins and dried apples. The beverage was an organic orange juice.

So the study was comparing a commercial fast food meal to two carefully designed organic meals (one beef, one turkey) from the above list of ingredients.

The composition of each meal was as follows:

It’s important to note that while the meals were similar, they were not identical in composition; it would have been better if the meals had been completely identical.

The biggest difference between meals had to do with the fatty acid composition: the fast food meal contained twice as much saturated and nearly 8 times as much trans-fatty acids with half of the oleic acid compared to the organic beef meal (which is no surprise).  Interestingly, the fast food meal actually contained more linoleic acid than the organic beef meal. The turkey meal had less saturated fat but similar amounts of linoleic and linolenic acid to the fast food meal, with the lowest amount of trans fats.

So what happened?

In terms of the blood glucose and insulin response, no difference was seen between any of the meals and this is true whether the data was presented in terms of percentage or absolute change from baseline. The same held true for the ratio of insulin/glucose, no change was seen between any of the meals.  Please read those sentences again: the blood glucose and insulin response were identical for all three meals despite one being a fast food ‘unclean’ meal and the other two being organic ‘clean’ meals.

Fatty acid levels showed slight differences, dropping rapidly and then returning to baseline by 5 hours in the beef meals but 6 hours in the turkey meal.  Blood triglyceride levels reached a slightly higher peak in the organic beef and turkey meals compared to the fast food meal but this wasn’t significant.

Changes in leptin were not significant between groups; ghrelin was suppressed equally after all three meals but rose above baseline 5 hours after the fast-food lunch but returned only to baseline in the other two meals.

The only significant difference found in the study was that LDL cholesterol decreased more after both of the organic meals compared to the fast food meal, HDL and total cholesterol showed no change after any of the meals. This was thought to be due to differences in the fatty acid content of the meals (saturated fat typically having a greater negative impact on blood lipid levels than other types of fat).

However, beyond that, there were no differences seen in the response of blood glucose, insulin, blood fatty acids or anything else measured.

Now, the study does have a few limitations that I want to mention explicitly.

1. The study only looked at a single meal.   It’s entirely possible that a diet based completely around fast food would show different effects.
2. The sample size was small: 6 overweight men and two women. It’s possible that differences would have shown up with more subjects. A related question is whether lean individuals would respond differently.  Perhaps but I doubt it.  As I discussed in The Influence of the Subjects’ Training State on the Glycemic Index, GI and insulin response are even less relevant in trained individuals.

However, with that said (along with the fact that the meals weren’t exactly identical), the basic fact is this: the metabolic response between the three meals was essentially identical.  There were no differences in either insulin or blood glucose, the fatty acid profile makes perfect sense given the composition of the meals and blood lipids showed basically no change.

Application

This study basically backs up what I’ve been saying for years:  a single fast food meal, within the context of a calorie controlled diet, is not death on a plate.  It won’t destroy your diet and it won’t make you immediately turn into a big fat pile of blubber.  And, frankly, this can be predicted on basic physiology (in terms of nutrient digestion) alone.  It’s just nice to see it verified in a controlled setting.

It’s not uncommon for the physique obsessed to literally become social pariahs, afraid to eat out because eating out is somehow defined as ‘unclean’ (never mind that a grilled chicken breast eaten out is fundamentally no different than a grilled chicken breast cooked at home) and fast food is, of course, the death of any diet.  This is in addition to the fact that apparently eating fast food makes you morally inferior as well.  Well, that’s what bodybuilders and other orthorexics will tell you anyhow.

Except that it’s clearly not. Given caloric control, the body’s response to a given set of nutrients, with the exception of blood lipids would appear to be more determined by the total caloric and macro content of that meal more than the source of the food.

In terms of the hormonal response, clean vs. unclean just doesn’t matter, it’s all about calories and macros.

Which is what I’ve been saying all along.

You can worry about being lean and having a six pack when it’s warm and you don’t look stupid being mostly nude. The winter is a good time to pack on some muscle mass and justify all that Halloween candy (”I’m bulking, bro”).

But in the same way that many diets fail for a lot of reasons, there are equally common reasons that trainees fail to make the muscular gains that they desire. I want to look at several of them, addressing potential solutions along the way

Not eating enough

Outside of poor training (which can be either too much or too little), not eating enough is the number one mistake I see most trainees making who can’t gain muscle. This is true even of individuals who swear up, down and sideways that they eat a ton but no matter what they can’t gain weight. It’s been said that ‘hardgainers’ tend to be overtrainers and undereaters and there is much truth to that.

Almost invariably, when you track these big eaters, they really aren’t eating that much. Research has routinely shown that overweight individuals tend to under-estimate food intake (e.g. they think they are eating much less than they actually are) but in my experience ‘hardgainers’ are doing the opposite: vastly overestimating how much they are actually eating in a given day, or over the span of a week.

Similarly, although such trainees may get in a lot of food acutely, invariably they often compensate for those high-caloric intakes by lowering calories on the following day (or even in the same day). So while they might remember that one big-assed lunch meal, they won’t remember how they ate almost nothing later in the day because they got full.

Some people simply lack the appetite to eat sufficient amounts to gain muscle (or any weight at all). While they may be able to force feed calories for a little bit, their appetite regulatory mechanisms kick in and they unconsciously reduce calories. Their bodies also tend to upregulate metabolic rate better than others, so they burn off more calories (a phenomenon called non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT).

But the simple fact is this: if such ‘big-eaters’ were actually eating as much as they think they are, they would be at least gaining some body fat, even if they were gaining zero muscle. If a trainee swears he’s eating a ton, but he’s not even gaining body fat, I know he’s still not eating enough (or even as much as he thinks he is).

Since I’m talking about body fat, I might as well address another very common cause of poor muscle gain and that’s trainees who fear putting on even an ounce of body fat. They’ll deliberately keep their calories low all the time and then wonder why they aren’t magically synthesizing muscle mass out of thin air. At this point, I’m not even including the folks who want to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time.

The simple physiological fact is that, to gain muscle, you have to provide not only the proper training stimulus, but also the building blocks for the new tissue. This means not only sufficient protein (see below) but also sufficient calories and energy. While it’s wonderful to hope that the energy to build new muscle will be pulled out of fat cells, the reality is that this rarely happens (there are some odd exceptions such as folks beginning a program, and those returning from a layoff).

And while there are extremes (such as my Ultimate Diet 2.0 or some of the intermittent fasting schemes) that allow people to put on muscle while remaining lean, they always invariably alternate periods of low and high calories. With the high calorie part of the diet (e.g. the weekend on the UD2) providing sufficient protein and energy to drive muscle mass gains.

Now, although this is a slightly different topic, I entreat trainees not to take the ‘Eat enough to gain’ to the opposite extreme. While GFH (look it up) can work for many people, eating so much food that a trainee gains a disproportionate amount of fat is just as much of a mistake as not eating enough in the first place.

Unless you’re a sumo wrestler or football lineman, eventually the fat has to come off; the more you put on while gaining muscle mass, the longer you have to diet. Which is not only a psychological chore but often results in performance or muscle mass losses (especially if you diet badly).

What I’m getting at is some optimum level, an intake sufficient to provide sufficient calories and protein for muscle growth without becoming a total fat-ass. Which isn’t very helpful without some starting points which I’ll present now.

Muscle magazine claims notwithstanding, a natural trainee is usually doing damn well to gain 0.5 pounds of muscle per week (and a female might gain half of that). Yes, you’ll occasionally see a faster rate of gain but much more than that (especially for sustained periods) tends to be rare.

And while that may not sound like much, realize that a 0.5 lb per week muscle gain over the course of a year comes out to 26 pounds of lean body mass. And most won’t get that past their first year of training.

However, to get that rate of muscle mass gain will usually require some amount of fat gain, depending on how much over maintenance you’re eating, this might be an additional half pound of fat per week. So a reasonable weekly or monthly weight gain rate might be 1 pound per week or 4 pounds per month of which about half should be muscle and the other half fat.

Short dieting cycles can be inserted to take off the fat of course, a number of people on my forum have been using the Rapid Fat Loss Handbook to strip off fat between short bulking cycles so that they can get back to normal training.

I’d note that this shouldn’t take a huge number of calories over maintenance. Assuming a trainee is not burning off excessive calories through either a ton of cardio (or NEAT), you’re not looking at much more than 500 calories over maintenance to support about the maximum rate of muscle gain for a natural lifter. I’d suggest putting a majority of that on training days (and around training) with a lesser surplus on non-training days. That should help keep fat gains down somewhat.

Of course, this will have to be adjusted based on real world changes in body composition. If you’re not gaining any weight, you need to up calories. If you’re gaining a disproportionate amount of fat, you need to cut things back.

Problems with Protein Intake

While less common than simply not eating enough, I have found many individuals to have problems with inadequate protein intake when it comes to the desire to build muscle. Although they don’t usually want or need to gain a lot of muscle, endurance athletes tend to be the worst in terms of not getting enough protein, since they frequently overemphasize carbohydrates to such a ridiculous degree. But even among weight trainers, occasionally you find someone who simply won’t eat sufficient protein to support gains in muscle mass. Considering the rather high protein intake of even the average American, anywhere from 2-3 times the RDA, this is a little odd.

What usually happens is that these individuals have fallen into the trap of the endurance athlete and overemphasized carbohydrates to the point of neglecting protein (and usually fat as well); this was a much bigger problem in the 80’s and 90’s when sports nutritionists overemphasized carbs but isn’t heard of now (now, the opposite extreme, carbs are the devil, is more often seen).

Sometimes, in their quest to eliminate dietary fat from their diet, trainees quit eating meat, this seems to occur a lot among female trainees. Vegetarians can have greater problems but even eggs, fish and chicken can fulfill protein requirements easily. And while there is the occasional claim of someone building a lot of muscle with a true vegan diet, I’d say that most who claim veganism turned to that AFTER building up their muscle mass with a more traditional diet.

Occasionally you find someone who just doesn’t like protein very much. Women, moreso than men, tend to underconsume protein and overconsume carbohydrates. As low as the RDA for women is (44 grams/day), I’ve still run into women who aren’t even getting that much protein a day in their diet. You get the idea.

The point being that some people just don’t get enough protein. As with sufficient calories, adequate protein is critical for gains in muscle mass. The common number that is thrown out is 1 g/lb body mass and this is a good starting place. As I detail in The Protein Book, raising protein to 1.5 g/lb (another common value) may have small, cumulative benefits that current research can’t turn up. It usually can’t hurt unless it prevents sufficient intake of the other nutrients.

I would note that, for natural lifters, I don’t see much point to intakes over 1.5 g/lb. An exception is hardcore diets but I’m talking about muscle gain here. As caloric intake goes up, protein requirements go down and suggestions to eat 2 g/lb for naturals seems more of a ploy to sell protein powder than anything physiological.

As a final comment on protein intake, it’s very common to find wannabe bodybuilders taking protein intake to the other extreme, and making it the entirety of their daily diet. This ultimately sort of ties into the first problem I talked about: inadequate calorie intake. For the kinds of caloric intakes that many people need to gain muscle/weight at any decent rate, it’s nearly impossible to consume enough protein to do it. It’s also inefficient as hell, both metabolically and financially but those are separate issues.

For example, a 170 lb male may have a maintenance caloric requirement of around 2500 calories/day. To gain weight, he may need three thousand or more calories per day. Three thousand plus calories or more from protein alone is nearly impossible to achieve.

This is on top of the fact that protein calories aren’t used as efficiently for energy as calories from carbohydrates or fats (this can be great for weight control but is a real detriment for weight/muscle gain). That’s on top of the fact that protein plus carbohydrates is far more anabolic than protein or carbohydrates by themselves. Studies have shown that, once protein requirements are met, more muscle is gained by adding dietary energy (from carbs or fat) than from just plugging in more protein.

Is sufficient protein crucial for muscle mass gains? Yes.

Is it all a lifter should be eating? Absolutely not.

I suppose, for completeness, I should discuss the issue of protein quality, an issue that trainees (and especially bodybuilders) get themselves endlessly wound up about. In short (and, this is discussed in massive detail in The Protein Book), at an intake of 1.5 g/lb. from varied high quality sources, it just doesn’t matter. Quality matters hugely when you have someone eating a small amount of some single shitty protein. This describes conditions in third world countries, this doesn’t describe conditions for an American athlete eating plenty of protein from meat, fish, dairy, whey, casein, etc.

Which isn’t to say that different proteins don’t have varying pros and cons or aren’t more or less appropriate around training or what have you. I’m simply saying that, given sufficient protein and energy from high quality sources, protein quality isn’t nearly the issue that people (read: supplement companies) make it out to be. It certainly won’t be a deal breaker for muscle gains.

Training Issues: Cardio

Of course, diet isn’t the only place trainees run into problems, there are also issues related to training. To get it out of the way, let me talk about cardio training and mass gains, an area where opinions vary widely. Some say to do no cardio, some suggest it daily; the current fad of ‘intervals are the best for everything’ has people doing intervals multiple times per week while trying to gain muscle. What’s going on?

Frankly, for all but the most extreme hardgainer types (the guys who burn off a ton of calories when they try to gain weight), I think the inclusion of some cardio can be beneficial. It can help with appetite (by increasing it), keep conditioning up a bit, tends to improve recovery and may help alleviate some fat gain. Perhaps most importantly, it keeps the fat burning metabolic pathways running so that, when dieting is resumed, fat loss seems to occur faster.

However, too much will certainly hurt things. Reams of data suggest interference effects of excessive cardio on strength (and muscle mass gains); I won’t even bore you with the molecular mechanisms here (you can read AMPk: Master Metabolic Regulator for the details). But it’s only when it’s done excessively or at too high of an intensity (cough, cough, intervals) that it’s a problem.

I know that everything on the internet is true but this fad of keeping in lots of intervals when you’re trying to get stronger and bigger is frankly pretty stupid so far as I’m concerned. 20-30 minutes of boring old standard low to medium intensity cardio done 2-4 times per week is plenty and, surprise surprise, your legs might actually grow because you aren’t overtraining them with two weight sessions and two interval sessions per week.

Training issues: Weights

Of course, where the real problems usually start in terms of training is the weight room. To say that the training being performed by most individuals in most weight rooms sucks is an understatement. The problem is that much of the advice being followed is coming out of the professional bodybuilding ranks at least as it is disseminated through the bodybuilding magazines.

Yes, the internet has helped out with this and there’s a lot more realistic information out there but a lot of people are still trying to follow programs based on the training of elite drugged out bodybuilders. And, contrary to popular belief, 99% of internet trainees are not elite, or advanced. A lot of them aren’t even intermediates. But they are trying to follow programs aimed at those folks.

In my experience, the typical approach of blasting a muscle group once per week for an insane number of sets and exercises simply doesn’t work for the majority. Yes, fine, there are some who do fine on it. They usually have good genetics and hormones. But the number who failed completely with that type of training is legion. You can’t use the minority who succeed on it and ignore the majority who didn’t.

There’s a lot of reasons that type of training isn’t ideal for most people, this isn’t the place to discuss it. Fine, you get real sore, and you’re real tired coming out of the gym. But who cares if you aren’t making progress? Being sore and exhausted wasn’t the goal of this the last time I looked.

I should note that many fall at the opposite extreme of training, hitting a bodypart for one set once per week or what have you. They’ll go to complete muscular failure, hit the hard isometric hold and be blown out and shaking when they leave the gym. Again, since being tired isn’t the main goal, who cares. This can be just as big of a mistake for another set of reasons that I’m not going to discuss here.

The bottom line is that, in my opinion, in my experience, and in the realm of a lot of good research, something in between those two extremes appears to be best. A weekly training frequency of 3-4 times per week is usually quite doable although, for many (older trainees especially), four days may be pushing it unless the workouts are kept very short. And yes, some people get away training six days per week but they are usually in and out of the gym very quickly.

This will allow each bodypart to be hit roughly twice per week or, at the least, once every 5 days (about the lowest frequency I recommend for naturals). Upper/lower splits are popular but there are other ways to approach it as well.

A moderate number of sets, perhaps 4-8 per bodypart (more for larger, less for smaller) is usually about right as well. Research suggests that 40-60 contractions per bodypart per workout seems to give the optimal response. 4 sets of 10 would be at the low end of that, 8 sets of 8 (perhaps 2 exercises for 4 sets of 8 reps each) would be at the high end. A typical workout might last 60-90 minutes depending on how it’s split up.

One final comment on training before I wrap this up: an insidious (and stupid) idea that is out there (especially in the realm of bodybuilding) is that trainees should focus on irrelevant things: the feel, the squeeze, the pump. This is crap and guys who do this, unless they are on drugs, simply don’t grow. Muscle grows as a function of progressive tension overload, if you’re not adding weight to the bar over time, you’re not growing. This doesn’t mean that you have to add weight at every workout, but if you’re not gradually going heavier over time, you won’t be growing either.

A few days ago, I did a review of Greg Everett’s new book on Olympic Weightlifting; as I stated, he has also done a DVD which I ordered shortly after getting the book.

Before reviewing the DVD, I want to send out major props for the customer service at Cathletics. They accidentally sent me another copy of the book instead of the DVD; when I contacted them they not only got the DVD out within a day but sent me a prepaid mailing envelope to send the book back to them. Great service is always nice to see.

In any case, the seminar basically consists of Greg taking his example model through the different topics that are covered in such detail in the book. Squat position, the hook grip, basic positions and then the various learning progressions for both the snatch, clean, jerk and then clean and jerk (how to sequence the two together) are presented.

About the only place that might really confuse watchers is that Greg sort of glosses over the issue of starting position, he mentions an advanced vs. basic starting position (both of which are detailed more in the book) but doesn’t really demonstrate the differences in the two or go into much detail in that section of the DVD.

Most of the drills are shown with a dowel rod with a few being shown with a light bar or bar with training plates (to show pulling position off the floor). The model shows excellent technique on all the drills.

Tangentially, this isn’t always the case, I have seen commercial DVD’s where the technique being shown was either incorrect or different from what is actually being described by the narrator which is simply confusing to the watcher. I can think of one DVD I’ve seen where literally one set of any of the exercises across the entire DVD is shown with decent form. No, I won’t tell you which one.

The explanations are clear and easy to understand and between a properly selected camera angle (front and slightly off to the side) and Greg having his model show the movements from both the front and side in most cases, it’s very easy to tell what’s going on and being done.

Greg gets into enough detail describing the various drills and movements without being excessive or inundating the watcher (or folks in the seminar) with excessive or needless information. This is the hallmark of a good coach.

The video is high quality with a couple of odd jumps and overlaps and the audio is clear and easy to hear (also not always the case in commercial products). The DVD has a basic menu that let you choose individual scenes, nice for when you need to go back and review one specific drill or cue.

Overall, the combination of Greg’s book and DVD would be an excellent investment/introduction to the sport of Olympic lifting. While nothing can really take the place of hands-on coaching, this would be a very good start.

The detailed descriptions and pictures in the book, combined with being able to see what’s actually being done at full speed (and of course most DVD players can slow down the video if you need to see things in slower motion) are about as close as most will get to understanding the lifts without coaching.

The Seminar DVD is available for $29.95 from The Performance Menu.

In my opinion, most of the arguments are simply an example of people using the same words to describe different concepts and I don’t see any real reason for there to only be a single definition of intensity that can be valuable in the weight room. In fact, by using various definitions, I think that training can be more accurately described.

Intensity of load

Arguably the first definition of intensity came from sports scientists and coaches (especially Olympic lifting coaches) trying to define and measure things relevant to them. In this case it meant defining intensity as the percentage of maximum load that was being used.

In this scheme, a 75% load (e.g. if you can use 100 lbs maximum and are lifting 75 pounds), is a lower intensity than a 95% load (you’re using 95 pounds of your 100 pound maximum).

The pros of this method are that it’s fairly easy to measure and makes concrete comparisons simpler: the guy lifting 95% of his maximum is working at a higher intensity than the guy lifting at 85% or 75% of maximum. This is especially true in research where it’s relatively easy to test someone’s maximum and then determine what percentage of maximum they are working at based on what weight is on the bar.

Unfortunately, only looking at the percentage of maximum tends to miss some crucial aspects of the training load. In both Olympic lifting and powerlifting, it’s not uncommon for lifters to perform a sub-maximal number of repetitions at a given load. That is, in theory, a load that is 85% of maximum will allow a lifter to get 5 repetitions although it will be pretty grindy at the end.

Many lifters, and this is especially true in Olympic lifting would be more likely to do repeat sets of doubles at that same 85% of maximum to ensure that technique and bar speed stay high; some powerlifters train this way as well.

It should be obvious that performing 2 repetitions at 85% of maximum and 5 repetitions at 85% of maximum are going to be a very different level of effort/difficulty even though the intensity of load is identical.

There is an additional problem in that true maximum strength can be variable on a day to day basis. Basing training around percentages can get misleading when what should be a 90% maximum load is actually lower or higher due to changes in fitness or fatigue state.

Which brings me to the second most common definition of intensity.

Intensity of effort

Groups that are usually associated with the HIT (high intensity of training) theory tend to define intensity in their own way which has to do with relative closeness to failure or simply the effort expended during the set. You might simply look at this definition of intensity in terms of ‘difficultly’. The harder the set is to complete, the higher the intensity and vice versa.

A set taken to the point of concentric failure is generally defined as 100% intensity and while individuals in this camp usually argue that anything less than 100% intensity can’t be reliably measured, others will use methods like rating of perceived exertion (RPE) or simply reps short of failure to gauge intensity of effort.

Clearly an all out set to the lifter’s absolute limits would be 100% intensity and an RPE of 10 (on a 10 point scale) with no reps left to failure. A lifter who stopped 1 rep short of true failure might be at an RPE of 9 and 90% of maximum intensity, a set done at an RPE of 8 might leave the lifter with 2-4 reps short of failure, etc.

I’d note that knowing how close one is to failure often necessitates a period of training where true failure is achieved. With practice, most lifters will know if they had one or two or four more repetitions in the tank. Beginners who have no conception of what true muscular failure is will not. I’d also mention that a good coach can usually tell by watching things like bar speed and effort how close a lifter is to failure; again this takes some practice and experience to do well.

Complicating things even more we might examine the issue of speed work as often done by athletes and powerlifters. Typically a load of 30-60% of maximum (low intensity of load) might be lifted for very sub maximal numbers of repetitions. But the focus on lifting the weight as fast as possible/pushing as hard as possible might actually make the intensity of effort quite high.

A Mid-Article Summary

Frankly, with only the two above definitions of intensity, intensity of load and intensity of effort, I think that training can be more accurately described than with either one alone. So while a set of 12 to failure might only be a 75% load intensity but 100% effort intensity (RPE of 10), a set of 2-3 at 85% of maximum might be an 85% load intensity but only a 50-60% effort intensity (RPE of 6-8).

In this vein, I’d note that a recent book by IPF powerlifter Mike Tuscherer called The Reactive Training Manual has a lot of very good information on the above approach to training, using RPE, fatigue cutoffs, etc. to autoregulate powerlifting training. Anyone interested in the topic would be recommended to pick up a copy.

Other Aspects of Intensity

Of course, I also think that other definitions of intensity can be useful or at least descriptive in looking at training. Nobody would argue that both a 1 repetition max (100% load intensity/100% effort intensity) and a 20 rep set of squats (perhaps 70% load intensity but 100% effort intensity) are intense but they tend to be intense in a different way. A set of 8 to 1 rep short of failure on the bench press (80% load intensity, 90% effort intensity) might also be intense but in a different way than either of the other two examples.

Given the general belief that training can have varying effects on either neural, muscular or metabolic effects of intensity, I don’t see it as too far fetched to look at training in terms of the neural, muscular or metabolic intensity. So sets of 1-3 are going to be more neurally intense than sets of 6-10 (more muscularly intensive) and sets of 20 or more might be primarily metabolically intensive (although the muscular effort is often still quite high).

For completeness, and having watched too many bodybuilders train, I might even go so far as to suggest another definition of intense in terms of focus and concentration. It’s not uncommon to watch bodybuilders using what are apparently fairly light loads focusing extremely intensely on every repetition, using slow movement speed and attempting to generate maximal muscular tension during all aspects of the movement. While the intensity of load may actually be fairly low, the intensity of effort (and concentration) certainly are both high. While impossible to quantify, I see that as certainly another potentially useful definition of intensity here.

Summing Up

Invariably when I see arguments about training intensity, the problem is usually that people are talking across each other, using different definitions that each thinks is the only correct definition. Rather, I think a more useful approach is to recognize that intensity in training can have different meanings all of which can have utility or value at different time points.

Alternately, as mentioned above, there are clearly cases where taking different definitions into account at the same time may give more valuable information about training than focusing on one or the other.

I must be out of the loop as I had never even heard of Greg Everett until he emailed me and said he wanted to send me a copy of his new book. Which he then did. And for which I thank him. I love books and I love good books and his is a good book.

Olympic Weightlifting is not a sport that has nearly as much written about it as say, powerlifting or bodybuilding, at least not in the U.S. Outside of the Russian Translations (which are often very difficult to parse) from Sportivny Press, the two primary books out there are Arthur Dreschler’s Encyclopedia of Weighlifting and Tommy Kono’s Weightlifting Olympic Style.

I suppose I should also mention El-Hewie’s Essentials of Weightlifting and Strength training. While thorough, I found it nearly unreadable and I can’t say it did much to further my understanding of OL’ing beyond developing a great appreciation for the importance of hair style in lifting (you’d have to have read the second edition to know what I’m talking about).

Certainly other books exist but most are more aimed at using the Olympic lifts for sports performance or what have you than in looking at Olympic weightlifting from a competition standpoint.

Of the two books above, Dreschler’s encyclopedia is truly that. Even for non-Olympic lifters, it has information that is valuable for all forms of strength training. At something like 400+ pages, it is truly an encyclopedia. And while it examines every topic known to god and man about Olympic lifting, it suffers greatly from a lack of pictures demonstrating what is being discussed.

The complexities of OL’ing don’t really lend themselves to dense text descriptions but that’s most of what Dreschler has. I’d note that Dreschler did release a companion DVD to the book to examine some of the topics discussed.

In contrast, Kono’s book is far simpler to read and understand; while less comprehensive, I found that it made some concepts of OL’ing easier to understand than Dreschler’s book by using easier and simpler descriptions and cues.

While it’s nice to read about the details and that the average lifter may dip approximately 6% of his height during the jerk or have an average back angle of 37 degrees during the second pull of the snatch (or what have you), it’s equally possible to get so hung up on minor details that the big picture is ignored. Kono’s book is more big picture.

Which brings me to Greg’s new book.

I’d place Greg’s book somewhere between those two extremes. While certainly not as comprehensive as Dreschler’s (I’m not sure any book ever could be), it covers the sport of Olympic weightlifting in good detail.

Warming up, the lifts themselves, equipment considerations, learning the lifts, fault correction, assistance exercises, basic training programming, nutrition, competition, stretching and recovery are all addressed in a professionally published well written book. Let me take a quick look at each section.

The book takes a fairly standard approach to teaching the lifts moving from the top down. Various position and basic concept drills with PVC pipes are introduced to get the lifter used to basic parts of the movement before moving to a bar and more integrated exercises.

Tangentially, I’d note that two of the drills (the scarecrow and tall snatch/clean) I hadn’t seen before; I used them with one of my (few) trainees and they did more to get her going under the bar than anything else I’ve come across. Had I paid for the book, that alone would have made it worth the price.

Perhaps the biggest strength of the book here (compared to say Dreschler’s) is that each exercise is accompanied by a sequence of photos showing what the lifter is actually doing from start to finish.

This goes towards making the text descriptions much much clearer. And while I expect most would argue that video is still better, I’d note that full speed video of OL’ing can be just as tough to understand as nothing at all: it all happens too fast to really see what’s happening.

Proper positioning of the lifter (e.g. feet, etc.) are covered in good detail along with guidelines for how to make adjustments for individual athletes and body lengths. As noted, the lifts are progressed from the top down eventually moving to the full lift from the floor. The drills progress logically from one to the next.

The same goes for the section on assistance exercises, each one is covered as needed along with pictures to demonstrate what’s being done and most of the ’standard’ assistance movements are covered in detail. Various core and supplemental stuff is also addressed.

I’d note that, from time to time, Greg (can I call you Greg) seems to get a bit carried away with using technical terms where they probably aren’t necessary. Reading three paragraphs about how the elbows are supposed to move around the bar during the catch for the clean is likely to confuse as much as it clears things up.

The section on fault correction addresses some of the more common faults inherent to the lifts in general and each lift in specific along with common causes and corrections for each.

Perhaps surprisingly, the training section may be the weakest part of the book. Some basic concepts are covered in terms of training ideas along with some templates for beginner, intermediate, mass gain and advanced athletes but beyond that, much of the theory of Olympic lifting training (which, as Dreschler proved can take quite some time to cover in detail) is left out.

Sequencing of the lifts within training workout or the week or even exercise selection isn’t really discussed at all except by the sample workouts. Again, this topic could be a book in its own entirety.

The nutrition section covers the basics and while I certainly don’t agree with everything that Greg says (e.g. Gary Taube’s contention that insulin is what makes us fat), that’s neither here nor there.

Stretching and myofascial release along with basic recovery considerations finish out the book. Again, pictures accompany everything.

Overall, I was extremely impressed and pleased by this book. It’s well written although, as noted above, Everett gets a little bit too over the top with technical details from time to time.

The book presents a logical method of learning the lifts (inasmuch as they can be learned from a book without hands-on coaching) and the information is solid and thorough.

Anybody looking for an excellent examination of competitive Olympic lifting would do worse than to have this on their shelf.

Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes and Coaches can be ordered from performancemenu.com for $34.95.

I’d note that there is also a DVD seminar held by Greg available from the same site. I ordered it yesterday and will try to review it after I’ve gotten it.  Read my review of Greg Everett’s Olympic Lifting DVD Seminar.

I suspect that having the DVD to demonstrate the drills and learning progression along with the book would be the best combination for someone trying to learn the lift on their own. While that will never take the place of hands-on coaching, it’s a step in the right direction.

As it turned out, my planned break from training (I take roughly 5 days off every 10-12 weeks to freshen up) coincided with Bob’s contest. We needed a vacation from SLC anyhow so we had booked the trip and planned for a long weekend.

We flew out to Ohio that Thursday morning and I took Bob through a short workout to see what he looked like and to keep him loose. Finished with some stretching for his traps and scalenes which are perpetually tight.

The problems started Friday, he went for a short hike/dog walk and got nauseous and started throwing up. We put him to bed for most of the day and re-hydrated him with Pedialyte, I was concerned about him cramping during the contest since it was hot and humid as hell.

Rested, I took him through the same workout that day as the previous, a little tightness in one hamstring/calf (an area he’d been working on with Dr. Zak but otherwise ok) was the only problem, everything else looked spot on.

Both days he looked snappy and strong, his technique was solid as hell on everything and it all looked good.

And barring any completely unpredictable happenings, he was ready.

He slept shockingly well the night before the contest (many athletes do not but as long as they’ve gotten a good night’s sleep two nights out there is usually no problem) and we got up on Saturday to drive out to Allegheny. Arrived at the Y after a little bit of getting lost to check things out. The contest had five events run in this order.

1. Log clean and press: clean and press from the floor for every rep. Maximum reps in 60 seconds.

2. Farmer’s walk: 100 feet with a turnaround at the midpoint. Best time wins.

3. Deadlift for reps: Maximum reps in 6 seconds.

4. Hussafell stone: 210 pound stone for 100 feet. Best time wins.

5. Tire flip: Supposed to be a 450 pound tire, best time over 100 feet.

We had no idea what sort of turnout to expect although it ended up being 26 total folks with 4 in the Master’s Category where Bob was competing.

The meet was a little bit disorganized and we did what we could to get Bob warmed up and loosened up (this was my big concern). Some easy bar stuff and a few reps with the log and he seemed fairly ready. His massage therapist from SLC had come out for the contest as well and did a little work on his hips (which are also perpetually tight).

At the last minute, they changed the order of competitors, deciding to start with the master’s class and Bob got called off first. Not only was this his first contest, the first athletic event he’d ever competed in, he got to lead off the whole thing.

I expected one of two complete extremes: either his training would come through and he’d just go on autopilot and kick ass or he’d choke completely.

He didn’t choke.

Rather than include a bunch of verbiage describing each even and what happened, I’ll just let the video speak for itself.

Click here to view the embedded video.